CHA P. II.

THE LAW OF HONOUR.

THE

HE Law of Honour is a fyftem of rules con structed by people of fashion, and calculated to facilitate their intercourfe with one another; and for no other purpose.

Confequently, nothing is adverted to by the Law of Honour, but what tends to incommode this intercourfe.

Hence this law only prescribes and regulates the duties betwixt equals; omitting fuch as relate to the Supreme Being, as well as thofe which we owe to our inferiors.

For which reafon, profanenefs, neglect of public worship or private devotion, cruelty to fervants, rigorous treatment of tenants or other dependants, want of charity to the poor, injuries done to tradefmen by infolvency or delay of payment, with numberlefs examples of the fame kind, are accounted no breaches of honour; because a man is not a lefs agreeable companion for thefe vices, nor the worse to deal with, in thofe concerns which are ufually tranfacted between one gentleman and another.

Again, the Law of Honour being conftituted by men occupied in the purfuit of pleasure, and for the mutual conveniency of fuch men, will be found, as might be expected from the character and defign of the law-makers, to be, in moft inftances, favourable to the licentious indulgence of the natural paffions.

Thus it allows of fornication, adultery, drunkenneís, prodigality, duelling, and of revenge in the extreme; and lays no stress upon the virtues oppofite to these.

CHAP.

CHA P. III.

TH

THE LAW OF THE LAND.

HAT part of mankind, who are beneath the Law of Honour, often make the Law of the Land their rule of life; that is, they are fatisfied with themselves, fo long as they do or omit nothing, for the doing or omitting of which, the law can punish them.

Whereas every fyftem of human laws, confidered as a rule of life, labours under the two following defects.

I. Human laws omit many duties, as not objects of compulfion; fuch as piety to God, bounty to the poor, forgiveness of injuries, education of children, gratitude to benefactors.

The law never speaks but to command, nor commands but where it can compel; confequently thofe duties, which by their nature must be voluntary, are left out of the ftatute book, as lying beyond the reach of its operation and authority.

II. Human laws permit, or, which is the fame thing, fuffer to go unpunifhed, many crimes, ber caufe they are incapable of being defined by any previons defcription-Of which nature is luxury, prodigality, partiality in voting at thofe elections in which the qualification of the candidate ought to determine the fuccefs, caprice in the difpofition of men's fortunes at their death, difrefpect to parents, and a multitude of fimilar examples.

For this is the alternative; either the Law must define beforehand and with precifion the offences which it punishes, or it must be left to the difcretion of the magiftrate to determine upon each particular accufation, whether it conftitutes that offence which the law defigned to punish, or not; which is in

effect

effect leaving to the magiftrate to punish or not to punish, at his pleafure, the individual who is brought before him which is juft fo much tyranny. Where, therefore, as in the inftances above-mentioned, the diftinction between right and wrong is of too fubtile or of too fecret a nature, to be afcertained by any pre-concerted language, the law of moft countries, especially of free ftates, rather than commit the liberty of the fubject to the difcretion of the magiftrate, leaves men in fuch cafes to themfelves.

HOEVER expects to find in the Scriptures a fpecific direction for every moral doubt that arifes, looks for more than he will meet with. And to what a magnitude fuch a detail of particular precepts would have enlarged the facred volume, may be partly understood from the following confideration. The laws of this country, including the acts of the legislature and the decifions of our fupreme courts of juftice, are not contained in fewer than fifty folio volumes; and yet it is not once in ten attempts that you can find the cafe you look for, in any law-book whatever; to fay nothing of thofe numerous points of conduct, concerning which the law profeffes not to prefcribe or determine any thing. Had then the fame particularity, which obtains in human laws fo far as they go, been atempted in the Scriptures, throughout the whole extent of morality, it is manifeft they would have been by much too bulky to be either read or circulated ; or rather, as St. John fays, " even the world itself "could not contain the books that fhould be "written."

Morality

Morality is taught in Scripture in this wife. General rules are laid down of piety, juftice, benevolence, and purity: fuch as worthiping God in fpirit and in truth; doing as we would be done by; loving our neighbour as ourfelf; forgiving others, as we expect forgivenefs from God; that mercy is better than facrifice; that not that which entereth into a man, (nor by parity of reafon, any ceremonial pollutions) but that which proceedeth from the heart, defileth him. Thefe rules are occafionally illuftrated either by fictitious examples, as in the parable of the good Samaritan; and of the cruel fervant who refused to his fellow-fervant that indulgence and compaffion which his mafter had fhewn to him: or in inftances which actually prefented themfelves, as in Chrift's reproof of his difciples at the Samaritan village; his praife of the poor widow, who caft in her laft mite; his cenfure of the Pharifees, who chofe out the chief rooms-and of the tradition, whereby they evaded the command to fuftain their indigent parents: or loftly, in the refolution of questions, which thofe who were about cur Saviour propofed to him; as in his anfwer to the young man who asked him, "What lack I yet?" and to the honest scribe, who had found out, even in that age and country, that "to love God and his "neighbour was more than all whole burnt offer"ings and facrifice.'

And this is in truth the way in which all practical sciences are taught, as Arithmetic, Grammar, Navigation, and the like.-Rules are laid down, and examples are fubjoined; not that thefe examples are the cafes, much lefs all the cafes which will actually occur, but by way only of explaining the principle of the rule, and as fo many fpecimens of the method of applying it. The chief difference is,' that the examples in Scripture are not annexed to the rules with the didactic regularity to which we are now-a-days accuftomed, but delivered difperfedly, as particular occafions fuggefted them; which

gave them however, especially to those who heard them, and were prefent to the occafions which produced them, an energy and perfuafion, much beyond what the fame or any inftances would have appeared with, in their places in a system.

Beside this, the Scriptures commonly pre-fuppofe, in the perfons to whom they speak, a knowledge of the principles of natural juftice; and are employed not fo much to teach new rules of morality, as to enforce the practice of it by new fanctions, and by a greater certainty: which laft feems to be the proper business of a revelation from God, and what was moft wanted.

Thus the "unjuft, covenant breakers and extortioners" are condemned in Scripture, fuppofing it known, or leaving it, where it admits of doubt, to moralifts to determine, what injuftice, extortion, or breach of covenant are.

The above confiderations are intended to prove that the Scriptures do not fuperfede the ufe of the fcience of which we profefs to treat, and at the fame time to acquit them of any charge of imperfection or infufficiency on that account.

'

HE father of Caius Toranius had been prôscribed by the triumvirate. Caius Toranius, "coming over to the interefts of that party, difco"vered to the officers, who were in purfuit of his "father's life, the place where he concealed him

felf, and gave them withall a defcription, by which they might diftinguifh his perfon, when they "found him. The old man, more anxious for the fafety and fortunes of his fon, than about the li

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